NewDad: "I liked the idea of people thinking, 'If those Galway kids can play with Paolo, we can do it too'"

“If I was a 99, the excitement would be the ice-cream, and the nervousness would be the flake.”

It’s a strangely profound description – courtesy of NewDad’s drummer Fiachra Parslow – of the unique proportions of anticipation associated with the release of a debut album. Singer/guitarist Julie Dawson agrees: “What an analogy, Fiachra!”

“Thanks,” he grins. “Straight off the top of the dome!”

Julie, Fiachra and their other bandmates, guitarist Sean O’Dowd and bassist Cara Joshi, are in Dublin to prepare for the imminent arrival of Madra. Following two EPs – 2021’s Waves and 2022’s Banshee, which have both clocked up millions of streams – the album will be NewDad’s first release since signing to Atlantic Records, a move that confirms long-held suspicions (including a spot on Hot Press’s ‘Hot For 2021’ list) about their potential for a proper international breakthrough.

However, these major milestones have done little to alter the Galway-spawned, London-based band’s refreshingly genuine, finish-each-other’s-sentences-style chemistry. Despite the near celestial sounds they’re capable of producing, the band prove to be, at their heart, unrepentant messers, grounded in an inherently chaotic playfulness that clearly has its origins in their shared secondary school days.

Credit: Alice Backham

Looking back now, Julie sums up their early success, which largely happened virtually, in the midst of the pandemic, as “weird.”

“We hadn’t played any shows, and then we went on our first tour ever, and it was sold-out,” she recalls. “We were like, ‘When did this happen?!’”

In the years since, the surreal experiences have come hard and fast – from signing to Atlantic (whose logo they’d previously admired on the covers of some of their favourite artists’ records, including Led Zeppelin) to working on Madra at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales, where Queen famously recorded ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

“That was the best two weeks of my life,” Julie says of Rockfield. “There were these two ladies, Jan and Sue, who made homemade dinners every night, and dropped them up to us. They were so sweet. So we’d have wine and shepherd’s pie, and then go back into the studio.”

While the roots of Madra – created with Irish producer Chris Ryan – stretch back to Galway, NewDad completed the project after relocating to London.

“When we moved over, we just went nuts,” Julie smiles. “We were like, ‘I LOVE THIS CITY!’ And then, a year later, we were like, ‘I miss my dog…’ But being over there, we’ve got to do so much, and work with amazing people. Half of the songs were born out of the fact that we moved, and those experiences that came with moving. We wouldn’t have as good an album if we hadn’t done that.

“And we also got to meet really great people, like you!” she adds, turning to NewDad’s most recent recruit, Cara. “That wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t there.”

Cara – who replaced the band’s original bassist, Áindle O’Beirn, in 2022 – is a half-Irish Londoner. “So it’s nice being around Irish people again,” she tells me – an admission which is met with repeated chants of “one of us!” by the rest of the band.

Although they’re living away from home, that Irishness is embraced as an integral part of the band’s identity – showcased in their unique choice of album title, taken from the Irish word for ‘dog’. They tell me that they have no real memory of why the title track, originally penned during their sessions for Banshee, took on the name – until Julie has a sudden mid-interview recollection that there was a dog pound located near their old practice space, and their rehearsals were occasionally punctuated by the sounds of barking dogs in the distance.

But the name also lends itself to the deeply introspective and emotive nature of the songwriting on Madra – whether inspired by on-screen relationships in HBO’s Euphoria on ‘Angel’, or personal experiences of being bullied on ‘Where I Go’.

“Yeah, it ties in nicely with the idea of not being able to escape things,” Julie elaborates. “And these feelings following you around – like a dog.”

Of course, the fact that a London-based band with a strong international fanbase can use an Irish word for a song or album title – as Fontaines D.C. also did with their Skinty Fia track ‘In ár gCroíthe go deo’ – says a lot about this generation’s sense of Irish pride, and their refusal to dull down the edges of their identity.

“There was some debate amongst us, and the people around us, if it was a good idea,” Cara reveals. “On one side there was, ‘Is the rest of the world going to understand it?’ But there was also, ‘Are Irish people going to think it’s a bit weird that we’re just calling it Dog?’”

“We were toying with the idea of it being White Ribbons, but it didn’t feel like it belonged to us,” Julie adds. “That could be anyone’s album.”

Like several other notable contemporary Irish guitar bands, they credit Irish traditional music as an influence – revealing that they’ve been subtly incorporating instruments like the bodhrán.

“I listen to that music all the time,” Fiachra tells me. “I grew up playing trad instruments.”

“He’s incredible,” Julie confirms. “He’s put us all on to some really amazing trad.”

“When we were younger, we weren’t even allowed to listen to Today FM or anything like that,” he resumes, recalling rows with his mother over having to listen to the radio as Gaeilge. “That’s all I knew.”

“Even in the songwriting, and the composition of things, we’ve definitely been inspired by trad,” Sean states.

One song, which ultimately didn’t make it onto the album, but the band hope to release down the line, was directly shaped by those roots.

“People were saying, ‘On your debut, it’s a bit of a bold move to stick a trad song in there,’” Julie recalls. “But it’s my favourite NewDad song.”

“Yeah, at the end of the day, that’s what we’d listen to, and that’s what we want to make,” Cara agrees. “It’s the same kind of situation of, ‘Is it weird to name your album after an Irish word?’ But it will come out one day, when we can give it the time and space it deserves. The next album will have way more trad stuff on there.”

At the same time, the band reckon Madra’s their most mosh-able release yet – something Sean’s particularly excited about.

“Sean loves the pit!” Cara laughs. “Me and Julie were watching IDLES from side-of-stage at Rock en Sein. I was filming, and I looked over into the crowd – and suddenly I was like, ‘That guy looks really familiar...’ And it was Sean, crowd-surfing!”

“The reason I did it was because I wanted to go get a drink, and there were way too many people behind me,” Sean reasons. “So I was like, ‘What’s the quickest way out of here? Oh, over the top!’”

Another major gig-going highlight for NewDad was Just Mustard’s opening slot for The Cure at Malahide Castle, back in 2019. Seeing another young Irish band, especially one from outside Dublin, delve so deeply into that expansive shoegaze sound was transformative. As they agree, the space and textures of the rural Irish landscape provides a natural canvas for those kinds of sonic worlds.

“If you grow up in a city, there’s so much noise already – the space is already filled,” says Sean. “Whereas, when you live among fields, you see all this space that needs to be filled in your head.”

“That’s definitely a recurring thing that you see with bands from rural Ireland, or the countryside anywhere,” Julie adds.

Looking back over some of her other seminal influences, the singer reckons everything changed when she was 16 – and heard Pixies’ 1989 album Doolittle for the first time.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God… Kim Deal is so sick. I want to be her.’” she resumes. “The Cure would’ve also been playing in the house, and they’re super dreamy and mushy – especially around Disintegration, and also Seventeen Seconds. I always wanted to make music like that.”

And Cara?

“I’m a bit younger and a bit less cool than these guys,” she laughs. “So I grew up on Jedward and One Direction…”

“She loves Jedward,” Julie confirms. “We all lost our blob when they messaged us.”

“It was genuinely one of the best moments of my life,” Cara enthuses. “I can quote you the entire 30-second-long voice note.”

I’m treated to both a replay of the wonderfully random voice note itself, and renditions of it from each member of the band – who’ve all apparently learned it off by heart.

“‘We want to meet you guys…’” Fiachra, who manages to pull off the most convincing John and Edward impression, recites. “‘London… Ireland… Wherever you are. Just keep being you, and keep rocking…’”

“We need more people like them,” Cara asserts.

Clearly, from Just Mustard to Jedward, there’s been no shortage of eclectic homegrown inspirations for the band. But NewDad are already being name-checked as influences by the wave of even younger Irish acts coming up behind them.

“Malahide Castle was literally the full-circle moment,” Julie tells me, referring to NewDad’s support slot for Paolo Nutini at the iconic site last year. “Because we had been standing in that audience watching Just Mustard and The Cure a few years before, going, ‘One day…’”

“I remember looking out to where we had been sitting, and seeing people our age,” Sean adds.

“Yeah,” Fiachra nods. “I liked the idea of people down there thinking, ‘Fuck, if those Galway kids can play with Paolo, we can do it too.’ Same as we did.”

• Madra is out now. NewDad play the Button Factory, Dublin on February 28 & 29. See their upcoming international dates at newdad.live